


#78

by FerinHite451



Series: Stardust [1]
Category: All Superheroes Must Die (2011), Chronicle (2012), Glass (2019), No Ordinary Family, Push (2009), Split (2016), The Listener (TV), The Lone Ranger (2013), Unbreakable (2000)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2020-11-26 18:48:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20935016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FerinHite451/pseuds/FerinHite451





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing anyone heard was gunfire.

The more sensible heads in the crowd dropped to the floor instantly, clutching tight to anything valuable. Others screamed and fled in any direction they thought would get them away. A few brave souls thought to assist their brethren and found themselves tossed about on the tide of flesh for their trouble.

All in all, fairly standard results.

A rather unpleasant man in a blue Superman hoodie and a Hulk Halloween mask released the trigger on his assault rifle and dropped the muzzle from where it was pointed at the ceiling. “Now that I have your attention,” he announced, “STAY THE FUCK DOWN!”

More gunmen in various comics apparel swarmed the food court, brandishing their weapons and tossing those not already prone to the floor. Children in the crowd fought to reconcile the violent actions with the bright colors and symbols that meant protection.

They lost that fight and began screaming in fear.

“I said SHUT UP!” Another salvo pummeled the ceiling as SuperHulk glared at the crying children. “Can’t even hear myself fucking think!”

Another gunman in a Flash jacket and an Iron Man mask planted his foot in a man’s back, forcing him lower to the ground. “All good!” he shouted.

SuperHulk nodded once. “Keep ‘em down and don’t let ‘em go anywhere!” he ordered. “We hold ‘em until we get what we want!”

Iron Flash kept his eyes on the man he’d kicked. “Yeah? What’s it looking like?”

“Don’t worry about it,” was his leader’s reply.

“What’s it _ looking like?” _

“Hey!” SuperHulk stomped over to seize Iron Flash’s shoulder in a pincer grip. “I said don’t fucking worry about it! We got this!”

Another gunshot caused them both to duck, nearly dropping their weapons. SuperHulk glared at the man who fired, apparently trying to intimidate some poor preteen girl. “Cap!” he barked.

He couldn’t see his ally’s face under Captain America’s plastic smirk, but it wasn’t hard to imagine the utter disgust on his face. “What?” he demanded.

“The fuck are you doing?”

“I’m just keepin’ ‘em in line!”

“The _ fuck _ are you _ fucking doing?” _ SuperHulk stomped over to his idiotic compatriot and grabbed him by the front of his Batman tee. “You get your shit straight, you understand me?”

BatCap’s response was less than agreeable, causing SuperHulk to slam him into the nearest pillar. “Do not FUCK WITH ME, ASSHOLE!” he screamed.

BatCap glared at him, but didn’t offer any other sort of resistance. Satisfied that his dominance had been maintained, SuperHulk let him go and turned back to the crowd. “You heard the man! Don’t fuck with us on this!”

None of the people crouched on the ground dared to challenge the armed lunatics in superhero memorabilia. Some prayed, some searched for escape routes, some just stared at the guns as though they might vanish if enough desperate wishes were gathered. Their captors’ tight grips on those guns made that unlikely, but there was always hope.

In fact, the wannabe costumed heroes were holding on to their weapons quite nervously. There were fingers drumming along barrels, stocks pressed hard into shoulders for longer that would be comfortable. Most of them consciously kept their triggers clear of any attempt at being pulled. SuperHulk watched the crowd closely for any signs of action as he turned to his ally in a Wonder Woman tank top. “They say anything?”

Wonder Thor shook his head. “Nothing so far.”

SuperHulk cursed, then a second time as he heard a woman shriek. He turned to see BatCap crouched in front of a lovely young blonde clinging to her friend. “Whatcha crying for, ladies?” he cooed. He reached to brush the blonde’s hair back, and when she flinched back he grabbed ahold of her friend’s face. “We get done here, head back to my place, I make you both forget all ab--”

Whatever else he might have said was cut off by a rifle butt connecting with his temple and sending him sprawling. SuperHulk followed up with a stomp to the ribs for good measure. “The fuck is wrong with you, huh?” he screamed. “The fuck is fucking wrong with you?!”

BatCap glared at SuperHulk with deadly hate that looked rather strange coming from such a heroic visage. “Fuck you, pussy,” he hissed.

SuperHulk yanked BatCap up by the front of his shirt and shoved the barrel of his rifle into his face. “You wanna get fucked up, keep on, motherfucker! Keep right the fuck on doing what you’re doing!”

“PULL THAT TRIGGER THEN!” BatCap roared. “PULL THAT TRIGGER, SHOW ME YOU WILL!”

“DO NOT FUCK WITH ME ON THIS, MAN!”

“_PULL THAT TRIGGER!” _

Gunshots rang out. SuperHulk dropped BatCap in horror as everyone huddled on the floor tried to get lower, crying out in terror. “Jesus!” he exclaimed. “Oh, Jesus, no, please--”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” BatCap screamed back at him from the floor. 

SuperHulk blinked, registering the lack of any blood or bullet wounds, then whipped around to see Wonder Thor aiming up at the ceiling. “What’s going on?”

“He’s here!” Wonder Thor shouted back. “He got Flash!”

Those five words were enough to make both angry comic thugs forget their feud. SuperHulk reached down to grab BatCap’s outstretched hand and pull him to his feet, then swung his rifle back up to a ready position in tandem with his partner. They slowly moved toward Wonder Thor, sweeping the crowd and the ceiling above for any sign of their target. “Where is he?” BatCap demanded.

“I don’t know, he went up and vanished!”

BatCap cursed. “I don’t want to deal with this shit right now!”

“Hey!” SuperHulk called over his shoulder. “Keep looking for him, shoot if you see him!”

“Oh, _ now _ I can shoot?” BatCap squeezed, spraying the ceiling with wild bursts of lead. “Now I can _ fucking shoot?!” _

“Cut that shit out, dumbfuck!” SuperHulk yelled.

“Oh, WHAT? WHAT’S HE GONNA DO, HUH?” BatCap emptied his clip out into the air. “WHAT’S HE GONNA--”

Something cracked in his stomach, sending fire through his very core and throughout the rest of his body. He never knew his feet had left the ground until he collided with the wall of the food court some sixty feet away. That flash of knowledge lasted just long enough to register before slipped into blissful unconsciousness.

SuperHulk and Wonder Thor spun to see the thing that had punished BatCap staring at them. Or maybe it was looking past them, or not looking at them at all. It was impossible to tell with the unfocused, shapeless mass of fuzzy light that seemed to make up its body.

SuperHulk knew he should fire. He wanted to kill this thing, erase it from the earth and his nightmares that would surely follow. But it was so wrong, so _ unnatural _ that he wasn’t sure a tank could kill it. What could his gun do?

Wonder Thor must have come to a similar conclusion, as he slowly lowered his rifle while keeping his eyes on the light thing. “We didn’t come here to hurt anyone,” he said slowly. “Our job was to get attention. We don’t know who wants you distracted or what they’re doing.”

The light thing listened patiently, watching as Wonder Thor placed his gun on the floor and straightened back up. SuperHulk tried his best to breathe. Maybe he would live past today. Maybe no one had to get hurt after all. Maybe wishes were cattle and there would be free steak waiting for him at home, and maybe he would wake up and this would all be a fever dream.

Then he blinked.

The light thing didn’t twitch and yet somehow it launched itself at Wonder Thor. The light distorting around it faded away to reveal a black Chuck Taylor planting itself firmly in his chest, just before he flew back and skidded to a halt on the floor.

SuperHulk instantly leveled his weapon at the seemingly defenseless man in front of him, but his finger couldn’t seem to find the trigger. “He was telling the truth, man!” he cried. “None of us even knew each other before this! Guy in a van grabs us, gives us masks, jackets and shit, guns, makes us come in here!”

The man turned to face him, and SuperHulk immediately wished he hadn’t. There was no face looking at him--there was just more strange light tricks, wrapped up in a blue sleeveless hoodie. He had fucked up, he had fucked up very badly indeed, and there was no God, or maybe this was God come to punish him for something he _ did not want to do-- _

“I just wanna go home, man!” SuperHulk howled, shaking the rifle in one last act of defiance. The man without a face regarded him for a moment more, then moved in that same impossible fashion directly in front of him and wrapped one hand around the barrel of his gun. A horrendous crunch rang through the air, and the length of barrel that had extended past the man’s hand fell to the ground. The man opened his hand to reveal nothing inside.

SuperHulk’s legs gave way underneath him. He would have collapsed on the ground if not for the man’s hand catching him by the throat. He gazed into that unearthly shimmer and cried, big honest tears that hadn’t graced his face since the day he turned seven. “Please, man,” he said. “Please, I just wanna go home.”

The man leaned in and whispered, “**you sure?**”


	2. Chapter 2

Anthony Richards slumped back in his chair as the news reporter babbled into her microphone about the latest insanity. Behind her, emergency services did their best to pick the most injured out of the crowd choking the entrance of the Memorial City Mall. Screams of terror and pain filled the air, nearly drowning out the reporter’s words even as she tried to be louder. Anthony knew what she was saying, though. He always knew, it never changed. People got hurt, more people got scared, and in a few minutes a lot more people were going to get real mad.

Blowing out a sigh, Anthony hoisted himself out of his seat and trudged to his kitchen. The cracked linoleum snagged his socks in old, familiar ways. The cabinet above the sink still dropped a millimeter or so when it opened. His mugs were still on the second shelf, an old habit from when his daughter had gotten tall enough to grab items below it.

The world hadn’t completely changed. No matter what else happened, the details stayed constant. It wasn’t much, but still something.

Anthony plucked a black-and-white mug from its place and held it under the sink, but something kept him from turning the water on. He studied the mug a bit closer; it was painted to look like Snoopy, an old gift from—

Mira. Mira had given it to him.

Anthony set the mug back in its place. Dusty wouldn’t like seeing it if he showed up. Boy had gone through enough the past few weeks, wouldn’t do to lay it on any thicker.

In the other room, the talking heads droned on about property damages and names of suspects and some such. Anthony had long learned that the only thing the news was good for was occasionally warning you about the weather. Everything else was playing catch-up on things that no one wanted to hear, especially since the Shatter.

He snorted. Shatter. Everything needed a big fancy name these days. Nothing could just be. Hell, it seemed like some things needed to be so special that they took over all the regular, like that Gaydos kid. God only knew what ran through his head every day.

The TV blared some bullshit commercial at twice the normal volume. Anthony wandered back into the den, wondering how a mall full of people getting shot at didn’t amount to news worth proper coverage. The world hadn’t gone that crazy already, had it?

Someone knocked at the door.

Without even thinking, Anthony switched the TV off. If that was Dusty, he wasn’t here to talk shop, if at all. Best to play it safe. He moved to the door and leaned in to look through the peephole. Someone was there, but they were leaning on the porch railing just far enough to the side that he couldn’t make out anything more than red-and-black flannel. “Dusty?” he called. “That you?”

“It’s Jerry,” came the response.

Anthony rested his head on the door.  _ Dammit, boy. _ “He with you?”

“I don’t know where he is. We need to talk.”

Not for the first time did Anthony curse his luck that he would be the one playing mother hen to all these stupid kids. He opened the inner door and glared through the screen at the scrawny blond man outside. “You can’t find him yourself?”

“Dusty’s pretty good about not being found when he doesn’t want to be,” Jerry shot back. “Have you heard from him?”

It was almost funny, Anthony thought. On any other day he’d beat respect into uppity beanpoles like these if they showed him half the attitude he was getting right now. “Not since September. Like you said, he doesn’t want to deal with people right now.”

Jerry hung his head and sighed. “He’s not okay.”

_ No shit, Sherlock. _ “No, he’s not. You can’t blame him, though.”

“I know, just…” Jerry looked back up to lock eyes with Anthony. “You sure you don’t know where he might be?”

“Good lord, boy, you think I know something you don’t? I ain’t out there! I don’t know half the shit that goes on until one of you tells me about it!”

Jerry stepped out of his lean, fists clenched. “Now hold on--"

Getting angry was probably the wrong move, but right now Anthony didn’t care. “I didn’t ask for none of this!” he snarled. “I didn’t ask for you kids to keep coming to me with your bullshit, I don’t give a shit about none of that! I ain’t your daddy! I don’t owe none of you nothing except a kick in the ass!”

“Then get out there and give Dusty that kick in the butt!” Jerry shouted.

“You said Dusty don’t want to be found, the fuck you think  _ I _ can do about that?” God help him, Anthony wanted nothing more than to knock Jerry’s head off his scrawny shoulders. Kid had the balls to come onto his property and look at him like that? Even Sam had more respect than that, and Dusty was too scared to try, even now.

Even now…

It felt like swallowing glass, but Anthony reined himself in. “Look,” he said slowly, “I know you want to help, and I wish I could help you.”

Jerry didn’t look any happier, but his hands loosened at his sides. “I know.”

“I know you know.” Anthony looked him in the eye. “There ain’t no answer for this. He’ll come around when he’s ready, and us trying to make that happen quicker’s only gonna slow it down.”

“I  _ know.” _ There was that attitude again, but Anthony held his tongue; Jerry never liked having the obvious explained to him, no matter how much he needed it sometimes. For his part, the flannel boy wonder was staring off to the side with no small amount of helplessness in his stance. “I just don’t know how long he’s going to keep on scaring people like he is right now.”

“Haven’t you and Sam both been up his ass about being too nice to them dipshits?” Anthony asked dryly.

“There’s a big difference between holding their hands all the way to jail and acting like Batman gone Punisher.” Jerry chuckled. “Under normal circumstances, I’d be buying him drinks.”

“And he’d be sending them my way ‘cause he’d have no use for ‘em.” Anthony put hi hand on Jerry’s shoulder. “You don’t have a lot to be scared of from him, Jerry. Dusty knows what not to do, and he’s pretty good about not doing it.”

“‘Lines crossed become options,’ yeah.” Jerry wasn’t fully relaxed, but there was less obvious tension in him than he’d come in with. “You’ll let me know if something changes?”

The word “yes” left Anthony’s mouth before he could think any better of it, and dammit, he meant it after all. What the hell did these children do to him, he wondered.

Jerry nodded with a faint smile and stepped off the porch. He cast a quick glance around, and then flew straight up until he wasn’t but a speck of black against a solitary cloud overhead. Anthony watched as one of his unruly bunch of troublemakers took off to the east, and prayed for the others. Someone had to be listening, after all. That much hadn’t changed.


End file.
